Incident report forms in Ireland: write the account, then check the HSA duty

01

What an incident report form is, and what Irish law requires

The HSA's information sheet Reporting Workplace Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences defines an accident as "an unplanned event resulting in death or an injury", such as a severe sprain or strain, a laceration, a broken bone, concussion or unconsciousness. An incident is the wider word, and most workplaces use one accident and incident report form for injuries, dangerous occurrences and damage. A close call with no harm done is best handled with a near miss report.

No Irish statute prescribes the internal form itself. The law sets a duty to report certain events to the regulator: section 8(2)(k) of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 includes among the employer's general duties "reporting accidents and dangerous occurrences, as may be prescribed, to the Authority or to a person prescribed under section 33, as appropriate". Section 13(1)(h) of the 2005 Act requires an employee to report to the employer, as soon as practicable, dangerous work and any defect in the place of work, the systems of work or an article or substance which might endanger anyone.

The prescribed detail is in Part 14 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007, inserted by S.I. No. 370 of 2016 and in operation since 1 November 2016; the HSA calls them the Reporting of Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2016. They replaced Part X of the 1993 General Application Regulations, which now applies only to events before that date, so a template that still cites Part X is out of date.

So a serious event usually leaves two records: the internal report, written for every event worth learning from, and the statutory report in the HSA's approved form, only for the events Part 14 lists. The first supplies the facts for the second.

02

What to include in an accident and incident report form

Keep the form short enough to be completed on the day by the person who saw what happened, with a second part for the manager who reviews it. These fields are a practical workplace template, not the HSA's notification form.

• Reference and report details: a unique reference, who made the report and when, and who received it.
• The people involved: each person's name and role, and who employs them: your own staff, a contractor's employee, a visitor or a member of the public. This decides who reports to the HSA.
• Where and when: the building, floor and room or outside area, precise enough for someone else to find, and the date and time, marked as approximate where it is.
• What happened: the activity at the time, the equipment or substance involved, the conditions and the sequence of events in plain words.
• The outcome: any injury as observed, any damage, and any disruption to work. Describe; do not diagnose.
• Immediate response: first aid given and by whom, whether the person was taken to a hospital or medical facility, and what was done to make the area safe.
• Witnesses: names and contact details, with each account kept separately.
• Absence: whether the injured person returned to their normal work, and if not, the dates they could not do it. The three-day test turns on this.
• Review: the reviewing manager, the HSA notification decision with its reason and date, and each action with an owner, a target date and evidence that it was done.

The HSA's page on Safety and Health Management Systems adds what an investigation should draw out: the immediate and underlying causes, whether the immediate response was adequate, and the potential consequences: "What was the worst that could have happened? What prevented the worst from happening?" It ends with "prioritised actions with responsibilities and targets for completion", and whether the risk assessment and safety statement need review.

First aid has its own record. Section 2.14 of the HSA's Guidelines on First-Aid at Places of Work says cases treated by occupational first-aiders should be entered in a first-aid treatment record book kept in a suitable secure place: the person's name, the type of injury or illness, the treatment, whether they returned to work or were referred on, the first-aider's name and the date and time. The incident form can refer to that entry rather than copy health details into a document more people will read.

03

How to write an incident report that stands up later

An incident report is read again when somebody asks a question months later: an inspector, an insurer or the person who was hurt. Write it so it answers for itself.

1. Deal with the danger first. First aid, the emergency services and making the area safe come before paperwork.
2. Write it the same day, in the reporter's own words, and note when it was written if that was later than the event.
3. Keep what was seen apart from what was heard or thought. "I found her sitting on the floor beside the dishwasher" is an observation. "She slipped on water" may be right, but if she told you so, say that.
4. Be exact about place and time. "Second-floor staff kitchen, beside the dishwasher, about 06:40" can be checked; "the kitchen, early" cannot.
5. Describe the injury, do not diagnose it. "Swelling to the right wrist, painful to move" is accurate; "sprained wrist" is a medical conclusion.
6. Never rewrite the original. Add later information as a dated, signed addition, so the first account stays as it was given.

The example leaves the cause open. The leak may be a failed hose or a blocked drain; the investigation finds out. A first report that guesses tends to make the guess the accepted account.

04

When the HSA must also get a report

Regulation 225 of the General Application Regulations, as inserted by S.I. No. 370 of 2016, lists the events that must be reported to the Authority:

• an employee dies as a result of an accident at work, or dies within one year as a result of one;
• an employee, as a result of an accident at work, is prevented from performing their normal work for more than 3 consecutive days, "excluding the day of the accident but including any days which would not have been working days";
• a person who is not at work dies within one year as a result of an accident related to a place of work or a work activity;
• a person who is not at work is injured by such an accident and, because of the nature or severity of the injury, is taken from the location to receive treatment in a hospital or medical facility;
• a dangerous occurrence listed in Schedule 15, such as the failure of a load-bearing part of a lift, or a fire that suspends normal work in a place of work for more than 24 hours.

For a death, the responsible person must tell the Authority by the quickest practicable means, then send a written report in the approved form within 5 working days of the death; the HSA's Accident and Dangerous Occurrence Reporting page says a fatal accident must be reported immediately to the HSA or the Gardaí. For a non-fatal injury or a dangerous occurrence, the report must be sent "as soon as reasonably practicable and not later than 10 working days after the event".

Count the three days carefully. The HSA's information sheet says weekends and other non-working days are included: if a cleaner is hurt on a Friday, Saturday to Monday are days 1 to 3, and if they still cannot do their normal work on the Tuesday, the injury is reportable. The HSA's Guidance on the Reporting of Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2016 adds that absences that are not consecutive are not reportable, and nor is an injury in a traffic collision while commuting.

Regulation 224 defines the "responsible person" who reports. For an employee it is their employer; in most other cases it is the person having control of the place of work. In a shared building, a contract cleaner's or security officer's injury is reported by the contractor who employs them, while a visitor's injury is reported by whoever controls that place of work. The HSA guidance's own example: a shopper who slips on liquid spilled during shelf-stacking and is taken to hospital.

Part 14 does not cover disease, occupational illness or impairment of mental condition, though the HSA guidance notes that "directly caused mental injuries such as shock or fright as the result of an assault" remain reportable. Accidents are reported through the HSA's online accident reporting system and dangerous occurrences through its own form. After a fatal accident, regulation 225(3) says nobody may disturb the place until an inspector has inspected it or 3 clear days have passed since the report. Anything done with an inspector's consent is allowed, and it is a defence that an act was necessary to secure someone's safety or health.

05

Keeping the records and closing the actions

Regulation 226 requires the responsible person to keep a record of every accident and dangerous occurrence that had to be reported for 10 years from its date, with the same information as the approved form, at the place of work or, if that is not practicable, the responsible person's usual place of business. The HSA guidance says a copy of the report submitted to the Authority meets that obligation.

Part 14 sets no retention period for internal reports of events that were not reportable, so decide one and write it down. The Data Protection Commission's principles of data protection require personal data to be limited to what is necessary, kept no longer than necessary, with time limits set "for erasure or for a periodic review", and kept secure and confidential. Keep health details and witness statements under restricted access.

A report that ends with the form filed has done half its job. Under section 19(3) of the 2005 Act the employer must review the risk assessment where there has been a significant change or another reason to believe it is no longer valid, and an incident is often that reason. Changed arrangements then belong in the safety statement, which section 20 of the 2005 Act requires to be reviewed in the same circumstances.

• Record temporary controls: a cone or a closed room is a holding measure, so note when it went in and what replaces it.
• Give every action an owner and a date, and an escalation route when the date cannot be met.
• Check that the fix worked: record who checked, when and what they found, rather than closing an action on a contractor's word.
• Tell the reporter the outcome, without sharing personal or health information they do not need.

06

Where the incident record fails, and where SiteClara fits

The form itself is rarely the weak point. The pad of forms is locked away when the early shift needs it, so the account is written days later from memory. The leak that caused the fall goes into the incident report and on to the contractor's safety adviser, but nobody tells the building's maintenance team, and the floor is wet again the next week. Ten working days pass because nobody tracked whether the injured person was back at normal work. In a shared building, the contractor assumes the client will report, and the client assumes the contractor will.

SiteClara is a working record for cleaning, security and facilities teams at a location. A worker scans a QR poster or taps an NFC tag with their phone to report an issue at that place, with a note and a photograph, or to record a scheduled check. The job stays on the team's list until somebody closes it, and the record shows who did what, where and when. At a provider-led site, a supervisor reviews the day's checks and photographs before approving the next-morning report to the people nominated to read it.

In the kitchen example, that is where the dishwasher repair and the check that the floor is dry belong: reported at the location, followed through, and visible to the facilities manager and the cleaning contractor alike. The incident report, witness accounts, first-aid entry and any report to the HSA stay in the employer's own controlled records.

07

Questions people ask

What is the incident report form?

It is a workplace's own written record of an unplanned event, kept for the employer and separate from any report to the Health and Safety Authority. The HSA's information sheet Reporting Workplace Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences defines an accident as an unplanned event resulting in death or an injury, and says recording near misses is good practice even when they are not reportable to the HSA.

Can I download a free incident report format in Word?

No Irish law prescribes a template for the internal form, so a Word document that holds the fields set out above will do. The report to the HSA is different: the HSA's information sheet Reporting Workplace Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences says accidents are reported online at webapps.hsa.ie or on the paper IR1 form, and a hard copy of the IR1 can be requested by emailing contactus@hsa.ie or phoning 0818 289 389.

How do I write up an incident report?

The HSA's page on Safety and Health Management Systems lists what accident and incident reports should cover: details of any injured person; the place, time of day and conditions; the immediate and underlying causes; the outcome and the severity of the harm; the immediate management response and its adequacy; the potential consequences; and prioritised actions with responsibilities and targets for completion. Write it the same day, and keep what was seen apart from what was heard.

08

Official guidance and a checklist to take away

Start with the HSA's Accident and Dangerous Occurrence Reporting page, which links to the online reporting system and the dangerous occurrence form, and the guidance on the 2016 Regulations, whose Appendix 1 lists every prescribed dangerous occurrence. The regulations are in S.I. No. 370 of 2016 on the Irish Statute Book.

Before relying on an incident report form, check that:

• everyone, including contractors' staff, knows where the form is and who to tell, on every shift;
• the form records who employs each person involved, so the responsible person is clear;
• it separates what was seen from what was reported and what is suspected;
• the injured person's return to normal work is tracked until the three-day test is settled;
• a named person decides on HSA notification, with the reason, within 10 working days;
• first-aid and health details stay in the first-aid record, under restricted access;
• reportable events are kept for 10 years, and other reports for a period you have set;
• each action has an owner, a date and a recorded check that it worked.